Trouble Under the Tree (A Nina Quinn Mystery) Read Free Page B

be very successful.”
    She linked arms with me. “From your
ears...”
    Her dark hair cascaded down her back in
waves, and I was happy to note that she didn’t have Mr. Cabrera’s
taste in Christmas fashion. She wore a deep green v-necked wrap
dress that cinched her tiny waist for today’s big celebration.
    “Are you nervous?” I asked.
    “I’m just glad all the little bugs have been
worked out. I swear if one more thing went wrong, I would think
this place was cursed.”
    Personally, I thought it might be, even if one more thing didn’t go wrong. I wanted to ask if she’d
ever looked into the history of the land the building sat on. If it
had been a sacred burial ground at some point—or something along
those cursed lines—but I didn’t think now was the best time to
approach that subject.
    Beneath heavily layered makeup, I could see
her anxiety in the unsuccessfully hidden dark circles under her
eyes and the lines creasing her eyes. In the past few weeks, she
looked to have aged ten years.
    “Everything will work out just—”
    My voice was cut off by the shrieking fire
alarm. Sniffing, I picked up another scent in the air. Something
burning.
    “Oh no,” Jenny mumbled. “Not again. Glory
Vonderberg might be the best gingerbread artist in the Midwest, but
she has the worst memory. She keeps putting gingerbread in the oven
and forgetting to take them out. This is the third time she set off
the fire alarms this week.”
    Ah. So that explained the fire alarms going
off—but not all the other strange stuff happening.
    Jenny grabbed my arm. “Come with me, Nina. I
might need someone to hold me back when I talk to her.” Gazing
deeply into my eyes, she said, “Seriously. Can you do that?”
    “Hold you back?”
    She nodded, her eyes filled with
intensity.
    “I think I can manage.” I was fairly sure I’d
lifted bags of mulch heavier than her. She was a tiny thing, maybe
one hundred pounds. Wet. If that.
    I followed her upstairs, her stilettos
clicking on the curved faux-stone tiled stairs. I’d met Glory a few
times already, and my first impression of her was that she was a
complete ditz. It had been my second and third impressions as
well.
    As we passed the Magic Reindeer Food kiosk on
the second floor, I waved to Lele McCorkle, who shyly waved back. I
couldn’t believe how different, personality-wise, she was from her
sister.
    “How come the sprinklers don’t go off every
time the fire alarm does?” I asked Jenny.
    “Don’t tell, but we had to disconnect the
system because of Glory.” Her cheeks reddened. “I’ve just about had
it with her.”
    “Isn’t that...dangerous?” Hello,
understatement.
    “Very,” Jenny said. “It has to stop, or else
I have to fire her, and I really don’t want to do that. Early
surveys from the soft open indicate Glory’s shop is a customer
favorite.” She glanced at me again, the intensity back. “You don’t
know how to bake gingerbread, do you?”
    I shook my head. It was easier than admitting
that I could, in fact, bake a mean gingerbread man, but the scent
of molasses made me gag. It wasn’t pretty, trust me.
    She groaned.
    “Have you had your blood pressure checked
recently, Jenny?”
    “I don’t want to know, Nina. I really don’t
want to know.” She smiled and nudged me. “You don’t happen to know
CPR, do you?”
    Actually, I’d learned after one of my
surprise makeovers had gone terribly, terribly wrong. “I do, but I
don’t think it will help if you have yourself a stroke.”
    “I’ll be fine after Christmas is over and
things settle into a steady rhythm around here.”
    I watched the way she marched and had the
feeling she was deluding herself. I hadn’t seen her often since
graduating high school, but whenever I did, she exuded such
high-intensity it was hard to be around her for any great length of
time. She was the type that could find stress in any situation,
whether it was running out of creamer for her coffee or a speck